Tag: Fiber

It’s September. Summer is slowly fading and our autumn is revving up. Whether you are getting back from vacation or starting school, now is the time to focus on building a healthy morning routine. Launching your day with a healthy breakfast provides you the opportunity to start with a bevy of nutrients, fiber and plant compounds that help lower cancer risk and can help provide energy throughout the day. Having breakfast can also cut down on compulsive snacking later on, which can play an important role in keeping you at a healthy weight. Studies are inconsistent about whether a balanced breakfast supports a healthy weight, but it seems that getting more of your day’s calories earlier in the day may be helpful. Healthy weight is important, since strong evidence shows that having overweight or obesity increases the risk of 12 cancers.

During our recent webinar, there were nuanced questions on whole grains and fibers, and we were unable to get to them all. I will try to address some of the important questions that came up and I think deserve a fuller response. Why do nutritional messages about lowering cancer risk talk separately about fibers and whole grains? Doesn’t taking care of one automatically take care of the other? Which is more important to lower cancer risk – fiber or whole grains? Whole grains are an important source of dietary fiber, and both are linked to a lower risk of colorectal cancer. So there is an overlap between the two. In other words, each offers distinctive benefits, and it is important to consider how you include each in your everyday eating habits.

Salads, although not essential for a healthy meal, do still make sense in winter! It’s an opportunity to try different ingredients than what you use in a summer salad.

Winter Salads: Rethinking IngredientsGreens: Today’s grocery stores stock all types of lettuce year-round, so you don’t have to switch up your greens for winter. For more seasonal fun, however, try kale or the winter versions of spinach, which stand up well to hearty flavors. These greens are high in beta-carotene, lutein, and vitamin C, and spinach is a good source of the B vitamin folate that helps protect our DNA.